In the digital age, online casinos have become a popular form of entertainment for millions of people worldwide. However, the convenience and excitement they offer also raise questions about their potential impact on players’ health and well-being. In this article, we will delve into the effects of online casinos on health, discussing both the positive […]
Over the course of your life, your parents most likely put food in your stomach, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head and eventually set you on a path for adulthood and independence. You may now be repeating that cycle for your own children as generations of people have been doing since the beginning. The last century, though, has seen an unprecedented disruption to that cycle with a rapidly growing number of Canadians now becoming unexpected members of the new ‘sandwich generation.’ Why is this? Well for one thing we are all living longer than any one of us expected to even a century ago when our average life expectancy was still only 51 years of age. While there have always been folks who lived much longer than that, they tended to be those who avoided the misfortunes of life and poor health.
When we think about emergency medicine, we often think about the most extreme cases – explosions, blood, trauma, and life-or-death situations. In reality, that is a very small portion of what we do as Emergency Department (ED) physicians. Our day-to-day roles thankfully aren’t that dramatic, but they are just as important.
The population of Canadians aged 65 and over is growing. In fact, it’s expected to double over the next two decades. This means that many more Canadians will be thinking about how they would like to live as they enter their later years. Given what we know about the priorities of older adults today, most Canadians will want to be independent, active, and to live at home.
As we age, certain activities of daily living that are essential to maintaining our independence, such as preparing meals, housekeeping, accessing transportation, and doing laundry may become more difficult and challenging. Significantly, about one-quarter of Canadians aged 75 and over has at least one unmet need with respect to their activities of daily living, and the number of older adults with unmet needs could be underestimated because they may not know what supports are available or how to best access them.
In November, the provincial adviser on health quality, Health Quality Ontario (HQO), published a report that found visits to Emergency Departments (EDs) across Ontario were going up. Their reason? Our ageing population. In 2014/2015, there were 5.9 million visits to EDs in Ontario, and 1.3 million of them were made by Ontarians aged 65 and over. That was up 29 per cent over the 1 million visits older adults made in 2008/2009 – the largest increase of any age group.
